In the context of growing product functionalities of component carriers equipped with one or more electronic components and increasing miniaturization of such electronic components as well as a rising number of electronic components to be mounted on the component carriers such as printed circuit boards, increasingly more powerful array-like components or packages having several electronic components are being employed, which have a plurality of contacts or connections, with ever smaller spacing between these contacts. Removal of heat generated by such electronic components and the component carrier itself during operation also becomes an increasing issue. At the same time, component carriers shall be mechanically robust and electrically reliable so as to be operable even under harsh conditions.
Moreover, efficiently embedding a component in a component carrier is an issue. This is in particular difficult when components are to be connected electrically with other constituents of a component carrier.
US 2014/201992 A1 discloses a method for fabricating a circuit board structure having at least an embedded electronic element, which includes the steps of providing a substrate and embedding at least an electronic element in the substrate with an active surface and a plurality of electrode pads of the electronic element exposed from a surface of the substrate, forming a plurality of conductive bumps on the electrode pads of the electronic element, and covering the surface of the substrate and the active surface of the electronic element with a dielectric layer and a metal layer stacked on the dielectric layer, wherein the conductive bumps penetrate the dielectric layer so as to be in contact with the metal layer.
TW 200715930 discloses a method for manufacturing a substrate embedded with an electronic device. An electronic component having a plurality of electrodes is disposed in a cavity of a core plate. By lamination, at least a metal foil is pressed on the core plate and the electronic component, such that the metal foil is electrically connected with the electrodes of the electronic component. Next, the metal foil is patterned to have a plurality of contacts.